Monday, October 13, 2008

Comforting Discomfort

While Matt Chandler is on the brain, I should mention that God favored me enough to tune into the Catalyst backstage live feed mere minutes before he was interviewed and took questions off the chat. I submitted a question, the moderator posed it to Chandler, and his answer brought me to tears.It wasn't that I didn't know the "right" answer. It's just that I needed someone to say it to me; I needed someone else to say it to me. I needed someone like Matt Chandler to say it to me.

Whereas Peter organized the diaconal office so that the apostles could devote themselves to the Word and to prayer, ideal ministers seem increasingly to be managers, therapists, entertainers, and entrepreneurial businesspeople.

Open up the average issue of Christianity Today to advertisements for pastoral positions and you’ll find descriptions like “team builder,” “warm and personal style,” “outgoing,” “contagious personality,” and “effective communicator.” (Catholic friends tell me that something like this affects Catholicism, too.)

I think they’re looking for a Director of Sales and Marketing, whom they may (or may not) call “Pastor.” I’m not against directors of sales and marketing; I just don’t think that this is what we should be looking for in the way of shepherds . . .

We wouldn’t have had Paul, for example. Who, having advertised for an outgoing team builder with a contagious personality, would have hired a pastor who openly disclosed the fact that he was not a great communicator, suffered everywhere he was sent, was nearly blind, and lacked the natural charisma of the “super-apostles,” who were only too happy to point out these weaknesses themselves?

Perhaps, like the immature and sectarian Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:5–9), we celebrate the extraordinary minister more than the ordinary ministry of the gospel.

Read the whole thing.

I've linked to it on here before, I think, but I'm grateful to the BHT's Bob Myers for reminding me of it again.

1 comment:

I usually notice "proven track record of success", which ties in with the Sproul quote you had up earlier. I thought Paul said "proven track record of gospel-centered godliness". Musta been an alternate universe. :-)